Anti- Pollution Masks for Everyone in Shanghai Recommended — Can E-Cat Help China?

Illustrating the severity of China’s current problems, Mr. Zhu Junbo, a Shanghai representative to China’s top advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference has recommended the government issuing protective face masks to residents of Shanghai, a city of over 23 million. The Daily Telegraphreports that air quality in Shanghai has deteriorated since 2012, and there are days when when cars are restricted from driving and schools are closed if smog levels are excessive.

Mr Zhu recognizes that face masks are not the solution to the problem, saying “We need to treat the haze at the source. We have noticed that Shanghai’s government and the central government have adopted many methods [to tackle pollution], but it may take time to bring about fundamental change.”

Apparently Shanghai’s pollution is not as bad as that in Beijing. The blame for the environmental crisis lies with the rapid expansion of industry in China, where increases in the construction of coal power plants and factories for heavy industries are growing at rapid rates to keep up with economic growth that has taken place in the country over the last few decades.

From the Telegraph article:

In an interview with the state-run China Daily, Shen Xiaoyue, a senior official from China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, warned: “The situation is too serious to allow further delays. After 30 years of fast-track economic development since the 1980s the environmental damage that’s resulted from the GDP-centred policy has become all too apparent,” added Ms Shen, who is director of the ministry’s policy research centre.

This makes all the more interesting the information we heard about the visit Tom Darden, CEO of Cherokee Investment Partners, and Chairman of Industrial Heat LLC, to meet with Chinese officials in Baoding lately. If the E-Cat can be developed to a stage where it can begin to replace coal as a source of heat in power plants, and in other industries, there looks to be a market in China that is ready and eager for a cleaner power alternative. China is investing heavily in wind and solar power, but it would seem that the E-Cat is much more suitable for industrial settings than more conventional alternatives, and if it can be disseminated widely and rapidly it could have a more immediate impact on pollution levels.

For Chinese government officials, it seems that pollution is not just a public health concern. Shen Xiaoyu (quoted above) noted that “environmental issues have the potential to not only erode government credibility but also to threaten social stability.”

Thank you for your opinion. About this effect, I convinced even in our small garden, another positive effect is the warmer summer in southern Slovakia. It has a miraculous effect on crops in the garden. On some favorable effect, I have no doubt. Also realize that opinions on this issue has become a matter of identity for the people and not be influenced by rational arguments.

malkom700

The question is that which is the safest state. This condition is the original that was three hundred years ago. The question is so serious that we must not be mistaken.

bachcole

There is the thought that zombies want to eat our brains. This is so serious that we need to take steps to avoid it. Never mind that brain eating zombies are fictitious.

malkom700

Thank you for your opinion, every topic has its skeptics.

Fortyniner

I have no axe to grind either way. I simply look at the evidence – all of it. Perhaps you should do the same.

georgehants

The one certain thing is, it is time that bloody “qualified experts” where automatically excluded from any serious investigation into subjects until they pass an exam of their mental state of minds.
——–
Pollution research sparks car control debate in China
Research claiming that vehicles contribute tiny amounts to atmospheric particulate pollution
in Beijing is causing the public to question government policy limiting
car use, but attracting openly bitter criticism from experts.http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/01/pollution-research-sparks-car-control-debate-china

Bernie Koppenhofer

Who is going to design the test?

georgehants

Bernie, probably more disturbing Truth in your question than can be imagined.
As most of psychiatry and psychology is still flapping around in the classical stone age, more mixed up than their patients, who is there?
Almost everybody else has an agenda of some kind, that does not include common sense and empathy.

Same wishes for you, Christina. I just wanted to say that the Chinese have the chance to make the third step after the first, skipping the second step. Therefore they could be finally faster although they have initially been slower. By the way, Chinese administration has recently abandoned their one child policy. In principle I welcome that, but I’m nevertheless concerned about population growth on the whole. It will take a while until humans are able to emigrate from earth. Cheap energy would surely be a great step forward to solve many problems, but it needs additional measures, like better education, social security and son on in some parts of the world.

jousterusa

These two items in The American Reporter today suggest a couple of reasons why greed and influence may outweigh public health in China’s approach to pollution…

Chinese Firewall Crashes the Internet: An Internet outaqge that blocked 500 million online Chinese from reaching popular Websites like Baidu was apparently caused by government efforts to censor news reports. One such report told of thousands of immensely wealthy Chinese who had hidden funds in offshore accounts (see next item), including many related to past and present Chinese Prime Ministers, a separate China story that broke Wednesday, according to a report in the New York Times on what is being called the “Great Firewall Crash.” “On Tuesday, most of China’s 500 million Internet users were unable to load websites for up to eight hours. Nearly every Chinese user and Internet company, including major services like Baidu and Sina.com, was affected. Technology experts say China’s own Great Firewall — the country’s vast collection of censors and snooping technology used to control Internet traffic in and out of China — was most likely to blame, mistakenly redirecting the country’s traffic to several sites normally blocked inside China, some connected to a company based in the Wyoming building,” the Times said. (1:59am, 1/23/14) — AR ONLINE —

Chinese Billionaires’ Offshore Stash A report by a consortium of investigative journa;lists has revealed thousands of offshore accounts set up by Chinese officials and businessman allow them to hide billions of dollars from taxation, the New York Times revealed Thursday. “Members of the Chinese elite, including some of the country’s most politically connected figures, have set up a large number of offshore companies that allow them to conceal billions of dollars abroad, according to a report released Wednesday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a Washington-based group that works with a number of news organizations around the world,” the Times said. “The report’s authors say it is based on leaked documents concerning tens of thousands of tax-haven clients. The report names more than a dozen of China’s wealthiest citizens, as well as relatives of top officials, including those of the country’s president, Xi Jinping; the former prime minister Wen Jiabao; and descendants of the governing Communist Party’s revolutionary founders,” the Times reported. (2:02am, 1/23/14) — AR ONLINE —

And China is a minority rule nation with its ruling party CCP composed of about 0.25% of the population.

ponk

Does majority rule work in a country where 90% of the people can barely read or reason [not referring to China]?
Democracy requires a strong middle class to support it. Or destabilizing is inevitable. poor and hungry people are easily swayed by the dirty “burgers”.
The road to stable democracy needs many steps. The West knows this best.

Fortyniner

That’s probably why the ‘middle class’ is being systematically demolished in the US and in many parts of Europe.

Correction. Just checked CCP membership which is now estimated at about 4% total population. Of those 40-50M members about 10k “rule” the country. @ponk, not sure if illiteracy obviates ability to reason. Democracies are not much different – except democracies pretend to open and free elections these days.

bachcole

The badness of this assumes that 1/4% of the population will only rule in it’s own interests without regard to everyone else’s interests. This is usually or at the very least often the case. But, given that pollution will kill and maim everyone equality, I am going to bet that the ruling 1/4% will jump on the green and hopefully LENR+ bandwagon with a frenzy.

BroKeeper

They call it Communism? Not hardly. China’s government evolved into 1/4% as Mofia. Money with power always corrupts. (hope I don’t hear a knock at the door)

bitplayer

AGM stands for “I can’t spell AGW”.

Goodness, it never occurred to me that fortyniner and bachole might have disagreements on this subject!

Pekka Janhunen

Anthropogenic global moaning

malkom700

Main advantage LENR is that it solves general warming whether we want it or not.

Fortyniner

… or that it solves general warming whether or not it exists.

malkom700

It’s incredible, but if we’re lucky, will LENR debate on general warming lose meaning. But it is also possible that it’s too late. It is too great a danger that we believe any theory. The best way is to restore the original state.

Tom59

I was living for many years in Shanghai and now in Bakersfield (most heavily polluted city in US) and have tested all types of face masks for daily outdoor use – but all useless (pm2.5 particle retention requires really heavy gear). Asthma, cancer is rising in China and ordinary people begin understanding that masks do not work (though useful for preventing airborne virus infection). With their comments, the city government buys a little time but I expect the central government to provide massive support for LENR even at the slightes sign of success. This will be independent of any business strategy of Rossis partner – the technology will then be copied in no time.

Fortyniner

Perhaps the Chinese people are being softened up for a wave of ‘green’ taxation to pay for conversion to a cold fusion powered economy (in the same way the rest of us are fleeced using the justification of the ‘global warming’ scam).

bitplayer

Could we sort references to AGM as a “scam” under the same heading as Christina’s references to God? 🙂

Fortyniner

There is rather more evidence that AGW is a deliberate hoax, than there is for the existence of God.

Do you mean that there is more evidence that AGW is a deliberate hoax than there is that religion is a deliberate hoax, OR do you mean that there is more evidence that AGW is a deliberate hoax than there is evidence for the existence of God?

EVERYTHING is evidence for the existence of God if one’s mind is in the right “place”, and NOTHING is evidence for the existence of God if one’s mind is just drifting. I believe that the world was made that way, deliberately. (:->)

Fortyniner

The latter.

StockFinder

If something like a God/Creator exists, then i suppose he/she/it could update their software algorithm at will so Co2 does or does not have an effect on the climate of an M class planet of a certain size, mass, atmospheric composition, land mass v ocean mass, and relative position to its sun etc…

If the creater did not exist or did exist but has perhaps passed away, then the software algorithm is probably set in stone. If the algorithm is set in stone, we can probably observe and model it with our own software and determine if Co2 in any quantity affects our planets climate. If many people did this independant to each other and say 95% came up with the same results; we should then consider if we have faith in the 95% or the 5%.

Fortyniner

Let’s suppose for the sake of rational analysis that the ‘rules’ governing climate variations are not intermittantly updated by a deity. In this case it is evident that a number of factors determine average temperatures on our M-class planet, of which CO2 variation in the ppm range is at most a very minor one. Personally I have no idea what proportion of serious researchers would support the idea of a CO2 driver for global temperature variations, but my impression is that it is now a tiny minority:

“From 150 million years ago to 65 million years ago, CO2 levels decreased by 1000 ppm. During that same period, temperatures rose by 7 degrees Centigrade.”

“…overall observations are consistent with temperature rise causing the oceans to release part of their dissolved CO2 after substantial lag time, yet not consistent with CO2 being the primary driver of climate.”

“New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are continuing to rise but global temperatures are not following suit. The new data undercut assertions that atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing a global warming crisis.”

Which do you consider less likely:
A) the existence of some spiritual continuum that might be conceived of as “God”, or
B) humankind’s ability to damage the environment (by whatever means) in a way that could cause billions of people to grievously suffer?

bachcole

Given that they both represent, respectively, Divine Intervention and Free Will, I would be forced to say that both are true, and that Truth is NOT a singularity. (:->)

Quiet Wine Guy

These two are both equally true. And they are unnerving fundamental realities that test one’s ability to be accountable for and to these truths.

GreenWin

A potential GUE (Grand Unified Explanation) is we are all participating (some willfully) in a holographic world aka “virtual reality.” In such a synthetic environ a handful of programmers can handily apportion “AI” imbued avatars undeserved powers and influence. For example, unremarkable (but well-meaning) astronomers like Jim Hansen.

Think how great it would be to compartmentalize skunk works with such a program!! Downside? Superior powers frown on unethical exploitation.

Fortyniner

Bitplayer, you seem to embarked on a mini-crusade against a straw man of your own creation.

No-one in their right mind would deny that humans are busily wrecking the environment in many ways – the present disintegration of the chain of life in the Pacific Ocean is probably the most serious example of all time – but the *evidence* indicates that ‘AGW’ isn’t one of them (to anyone who actually looks at it).

Your question has also shifted to ‘likelihood’ rather than ‘evidence’. Likelihood is a subjective estimate of probability that incorporates many ‘soft’ factors, while evidence is factual information supporting a particular theory or surmise. I would respectfully suggest that my original statement that there is more *evidence* that AGW is a deliberate scam that is not based on real observations (such as the ‘climategate’ emails, and the observations of scientists who are not in the IPCC group) than there is for the existence of God, is self evident.

Pekka Janhunen

Science is, or should be, a set of falsifiable hypotheses and models that are not in contradiction with experimental knowledge. Religion is, or should be, a set of non-falsifiable hypotheses and models that are not in contradiction with experimental knowledge. In that sense, the question about evidence for God is not well posed and as such, comparing it with some other question is not meaningful.

Fortyniner

Evidence of fraud – copied from my post over on the ‘always open’ thread:

“In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill.”

“I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of the facts on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience.” (Al Gore, climate billionaire)

“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us
has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing….

“The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful.”

All of the proofs for the existence of God are subjective (which is fine by me), so 49er wins.

Fortyniner

I’m not actually trying to ‘win’ anything, simply providing the rationale behind my comment. I would just note that I said ‘evidence’, not ‘proof’. For instance, I would regard some ‘near death experiences’ as recounted by apparently reliable individuals as evidence of the existence of ‘God’ (or at least of a level of reality not explicable within current understanding), but not as proof because a number of other possible explanations remain.

bachcole

Very good. When we get down to the nitty gritty, there is no such thing as proof of anything. There is only evidence or data points, and the better the pattern the evidence illustrates the better the “proof”.

GreenWin

It is fascinating that here at usual solar cycle peak, the Sun has essentially gone to sleep. And now even BBC reports a potential mini-ice age underway. Climategaters chew their nails, aware their massive fraud is unravelling; due not only to anthropogenic investigation, but to a stubborn star at the center of the solar system. Like a Gene Roddenberry tale, the quiescent Sun reminds climate alarmists… they are powerless.

Being fully honest to the rationalist tradition requires following it all the way to its logical conclusion. Wittgenstein is as far as the West has gotten in that respect. Nagarjuna in the “Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way”, using irrefutable direct common sense logic, pounds all rationalism past rubble, past sand, past dust, into, well, he doesn’t even say.

After the human logic engine is stripped of its blinding assumptions about anything existing in any non-relative way, through relentlessly being shown that “objective factual information” is a logically (not just psychologically) incoherent notion, perception of “the facts” changes in a profound way.

On the other hand, if one chooses to proceed with the un-examined assumption that some things are finally and absolutely solid, reliable, predictable, repeatable, objectively real, out there, independent, not reliant on views, etc., well, that’s like saying, I’m only going to look for the lost watch under the streetlight, because that’s where I can see most clearly.

With respect to shifting the goal posts, perhaps the object of the original game involved a different form of alternative energy, the manifestations of which are right here at hand.

Fortyniner

Thanks for the interesting links. I’m not familiar with the precepts of Buddhism, but I am aware that the human mind can never encompass any ‘ultimate reality’, and that all human understanding is based on our limited perceptions and can therefore never be more than a vastly simplified representation of reality. From this viewpoint it is also apparent that there is no ‘matter, space or time’, no ‘me’ or ‘you’ and no ‘out there’, and that all things are ultimately one.

That said, my unreconstructed monkey mind insists that in the world I appear to wake up to each ‘day’, I have to eat, drink, sleep, earn money and do all the other things that my perceived reality demands, and that the feeble tool I call reason demands what it thinks of as facts, in order to to be able to navigate this self-constructed image of reality. It is in this context that I refer to ‘objective evidence’, even while being aware that when viewed from a more enlightened viewpoint there can never be such a thing.

bitplayer, there is an old belief in the merits of common sense.
Common sense and Logic would dictate, I think that when in Rome do as the Romans.
If I set my alarm clock I do not need to invoke Einstein’s theory of relativity,
When talking about Global Warming I do not need to remind myself that we are nothing but unsubstantial energy.
The people who have failed miserably to competently absorb these Facts are scientists who should be looking at most things in a Quantum manner and yet are so unprofessional that they do not even realise that all of medical science involves Quantum reactions of many kinds and the mind.
One simply draws the line between hard common sense and philosophical reality at a point that allows good sense to prevail in the everyday operation of the World.
Science on the other hand in most cases see’s only protecting their status quo, unwarranted charitable salaries and positions at the cost of much suffering to our populations, as with the delay of Cold Fusion that is classical in its common sense effects but certainly Quantum in origin.

Fortyniner

I suspect that bitplayer was just having a bit of fun moving the goalposts – along with the entire playing field – by introducing a philosophy according to which nothing really exists at all.

georgehants

Ha Peter, maybe so but many people like to “move the goalposts” as a way of avoiding the obvious, a certain maryyago was quite adept at this.
Sorry to be serious but if you managed to read Lipton’s Biology of Belief yet, he said that one third of medical deaths where caused by the side effects of drugs.
I found it hard to believe the number was so high.
Then as happens so often, this morning the below link turns up
All this because science refuses to look at the obvious, reductionist science is not the answer, but the Dogma just goes on and on.
Counting the hidden victims of medicinehttp://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129532.000-counting-the-hidden-victims-of-medicine.html?cmpid=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|online-news#.UuI30ftFBkg

Fortyniner

Lipton – yes (skimmed, anyway – I’m a bit short of time to read properly these days). The degree to which belief can override evidence and logic is hardly surprising, but the inability of many people to revise a pre-formed belief when confronted with proof positive that it is faulty is downright depressing.

bachcole

Reductionist science (times) healing = evidence based medicine. Don’t let that phrase “evidence based medicine” fool you. It sounds great. But in practice it is all about abandoning ALL deductive thinking in favor of experiments that isolate symptoms and ignore principles and ignores the health of the whole patient/person. One principle that pharmaceutical companies and most all practicing MDs ignore constantly is the Theory of Evolution. NO pharmaceutical drug can be metabolized by ANY organism because pharmaceutical drugs are all made to be unnatural, so that they can be patented and make lots of money. An implication of the phrase “evidence based medicine” is that complementary and/or alternative healing is oblivious to evidence. Such is not the case, and such an implication is a lie. We just don’t think that giving toxins to people builds health.

Fortyniner

I agree 100% – but perhaps we may all be drifting rather a way off topic here..

Christopher Calder

The USA has its own air pollution problems. Many small towns and cities situated in valleys have winter air pollution that makes them worse to live in than Los Angeles due to ordinary wood smoke pollution. If electricity were cheap, or there were affordable E-Cat based home space heaters available at big box stores, then that problem would be solved. In the Southeastern USA coal is the big polluter. Turning to natural gas is a help in the short run because natural gas does not throw out the deadly particulate pollution that kills people. The long term solution has to be nuclear, however.

Donk970

The one good thing about a communist or true socialist government is that they can just decide to do things without respect for profitability. In some ways you can look at countries like China as single mega-corporations that look for large scale benefit to the people. If everyone in the country is sick because of pollution the national profitability goes down which is a good reason for the government to make decisions to pursue things like cold fusion as an alternative to coal.

bitplayer

Great Leap Forward 1958-1961
Estimates of the death toll range from 18 million to 45 million

Cultural Revolution 1966
Millions of people were persecuted in the violent factional struggles that ensued across the country,

Tiananmen Square 1989
The scale of military mobilization and the resulting bloodshed were unprecedented in thehistory of Beijing, a city with a rich tradition of popular protests in the 20th century

It is possible that the cultural revolution was more of a losing control by the Communists, temporarily at least. That is how I see it. Their ideology of equality started to trump their control. I am not justifying the so-called Cultural Revolution or Communism. I am just looking at it sociologically or with regard to political power. I believe that that attitude spread into Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge murdered 1/3 of their population.

bitplayer

Wherefore the political science term “ideology” becomes a cover word for the sociobiology term “hallucinations of power-mad hominids.”

Andreas Moraitis

China could become an example of a society that – although less developed in some respect – might find itself suddenly at the top. Western achievements like catalytic equipped cars, low-emission conventional power plants or modern heating systems may reduce pollution but can also blind us to the fact that environmental problems still exist and will catch up with the time, mainly due to population growth. Usually, we need a catastrophe before we start to do something. And even then it’s difficult if there are firmly established interests who oppose any change. See Japan with it’s nuclear industry, for instance.

StockFinder

So can the coal power station boilers be replaced with e-cats? Which companies are capable of doing this?

Fortyniner

Are these rhetorical questions? If not, you may wish to go back through earlier posts to learn what is known about Tom Darden’s recent visit to China, which is what this topic relates to.

bitplayer

Nice picture here, of the type of boiler heating element that “produces about 50% of the world’s electric supply”.

The E-cats would need a Purpose designed boiler.
The Existing Turbines could be used by a different manifold/interface.
Economically practical would be the real question to which I would suggested, Maybe for smaller generating plants up to half a gigawatt.

It would be “MY” opinion that drop in units would be only to incorporate the new technology faster, but most would be smaller community based power plants. More economical as it would require a smaller grid/cost. Less massive infrastructure.

clovis ray

Good ?, and someone with the connections should be looking into this subject, because i believe that Dr. rossi and co. will need this type of construction co. to do that particular type work, it will be needed to retrofit all coal burners , with the cat..

Daniel Maris

“Potential to not only erode government credibility but also to threaten social stability” – translation = might result in street revolts against the Communist dictatorship. That is why they are keen to do something about it.